


Holding On.

by One_Real_Imonkey



Series: Twisted Memories AU [20]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Attempted Murder, CC-2224 | Cody Needs a Hug, Clone Trooper Inhibitor Chips (Star Wars), Dark, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Good Parent Jango Fett, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt CC-2224 | Cody, Hurt/Comfort, I'm so sorry, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jango Fett Needs a Hug, Major Character Death Mentioned, Mand'alor Jango Fett, Mentioned suicide attempts, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Murder, Order 66 Aftermath (Star Wars), Order 66 Happened Differently (Star Wars), Please Don't Kill Me, Post-Order 66 (Star Wars), Pregnancy, Protective Jango Fett, Recovery, Rescue Missions, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, it happened again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 05:40:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29621439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/One_Real_Imonkey/pseuds/One_Real_Imonkey
Summary: Survivors from all over, vode, Jedi, Mandalorians, they're all flowing to Mandalore, for safety and for leadership.Jango feels like he's falling apart, but there's new information on the 212th, and he needs to do something.Freeing the 212th is something, isn't it?
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Jango Fett, CC-5052 | Bly/Aayla Secura, Jango Fett & Clone Troopers, Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: Twisted Memories AU [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2146377
Comments: 26
Kudos: 183





	Holding On.

**Author's Note:**

> I swear, there will be other happy things in this AU. I Swear It. We just have to get through these. I'd like to think this is marginally happier than the last one.  
> After all, someone needs to go find Cody.  
> I don't own Star Wars.  
> Please enjoy.

So many Jedi had survived.

Jango couldn’t help but be thankful as more and more Jedi refugees flocked to  Mandalore , that some of his  riduur’s people had survived. And every ship that arrived having escaped the raid on the Temple, younglings in tow, was a small bit of hope that all was not completely lost.

He felt lost.

He needed Obi-Wan by his side, managing this, but he was alone. There was an empty space where his  riduur had once stood, and no-one was willing to step into it, not even to calm him when he yelled or guide him when he just didn’t know what he was  supposed to do.

He had to save his  ade , help his  riduur’s people, stop the Sith, save  Padmé and her  ade , protect Mandalore...

It was all so much.

He'd been sitting in the Medical room, overseeing his boy’s having their chips removed, the care of the more injured  Jetiise who’s compromised  vode had fired and just giving himself a short break from the non-stop work.

The need to get out was sudden, but consuming.

He couldn’t spend another second by the  bacta tanks that held Sinker and Warthog and Comit and Jet, who’d all crashed their own fighters rather than fire on their General, simple awareness of the chips enough to allow them to fight them when they were up in the air, not for long, but for long enough to put their fighters into tail spins. The rest of their airborne unit hadn’t been so lucky as to survive, and Boost and Wolffe and Jedi Master Koon refused to leave their sides. The rest of the 124 th were milling  about or gearing up for rescue missions, and he was sure Wolffe would be joining them.

He couldn’t spend one more minute looking at Bly, forehead and hand pressed to the  bacta tank his  ven’riduur Aayla floated in. The  baar’ur were hopeful for both her and the child they’d discovered she was carrying, but the news that she’d been pregnant had broken something in Bly. He hadn’t spoken a word since, and his face was drawn, eyes haunted. He just stayed by her side.

He'd fired on his pregnant  riduur , Jango didn’t know how he’d have coped in the same situation, especially knowing how close he’d come to just shooting Obi-Wan on the Slave 1 the first time they’d reunited, but as long as there was hope, he was sure Bly wouldn’t go to eat his blaster, and if he did try, there were  vode by his side, looking after him, doing their best to get him to eat and drink and keep going.

He couldn’t see one more vod who’s  Jetii or  vode hadn’t been so lucky. Who were battling a deep guilt, the pain of what they’d been forced to  do. The ones who showed up free but alone, or worse with padawans without masters, or masters without padawans. Grey holding little Caleb while they waited and prayed for Depa, his Buir, to wake. She'd gone down protecting her ad before the rest of her  vode had been freed, and if she survived, chances were she’d never fight again. It was clear that protecting Caleb was the anchor Grey was using to hold on, like so many others.  Baar'ur kept weapons out, and tools like scalpels were kept out of reach. They'd only had to make that mistake once, and they weren’t planning on letting it happen again.

He didn’t flee the medical halls, but it was a very close thing.

Myles found him in the gardens, on the marble bench under the willow that Obi-Wan always meditated on. He wondered if the peaceful atmosphere in this spot alone would last, now that Obi-Wan was gone.

“Jango?”

“Myles, I have no idea what to do.”

“I don’t think anyone does, vod.”

“I wish I had  Jas’Buir here. He'd know what do to.”

“I hate to say it, Jango, but even your Buir would have struggled here. Jango, no-one will doubt you for being shaky, not when you’ve lost so much, but you need to work out what we can do. Not what we need to do, what we can do. A show of power, stability, hope.”

“Myles. I can’t...”

“Intelligence says the 212 are still on  Utapau , Kix has that device perfected, go there, save your boys, do something.”

The 212th, Cody, Obi-Wan's squad,  kriff . 

They had been on a comm silence, they hadn’t even known about the chips, the whole time, as everything happened, they’d been on  Utapau , trapped in their own minds. He'd been sure they’d have been recalled to Coruscant after Obi-Wan's death, that they’d have been far from his reach already.

They were still on Utapau.

He had to free them.

.

.

.

“Buir.”

“Kix, it works?”

“This will shut down the tech part of the chips within a small radius. We'll still want to remove them, but it will free them from  it’s control. We made them before the order was given, had a bad feeling, it helped the units we could give them too in the time it took to save them.”

“I remember you saying so, it’s helped with the other units?”

“Lek, the  vode who’s chips were already out used them to rescue their  vode when the order went live in a lot of  battalions . This one has a wider radius than those, but Buir, there’s no-one in the 212th who had their chips out.”

Kix didn’t have to tell him that there would undoubtedly be casualties, they both knew it. Under mind control, the  vode had already proved themselves willing to kill and die for their orders. 

“Thank you, Ki’ika.”

“Buir, go save Cody. And the 212th, all of them.”

“I will. Kix, I will.”

He couldn’t fail his  allit any more than he already had.

Jango hated knowing he’d been too late.

Hated knowing that while so many of his boys had been saved, both the 212 and 332 had been comm silent. 

He hadn’t even been able to warn them.

Ahsoka and Rex and Jesse had survived, but it had been miraculous. 

He prayed there were members of the 212 left to save. Intelligence said there was, but... no, he had to keep his hope.

And hopefully by the time he’d returned from Utapau, they’d have a lead on  Padmé .

.

.

.

The 212th were ready for a fight, ready for them.

But they were ready too, armed with stunners, flash bangs, disabling weapons rather than lethal ones, because there were his boys and they were going to fight to  the death if he and his didn’t stop them.

There were already bodies, some likely from the battle with the droids a few days prior, some, he feared, could be  vode who’s chips failed or were starting to rot, executed by their own brothers. It had happened in so many places, though they’d all har warning.

They didn’t need to fight though, just get close enough to use the devices that would free them.

Easier said than done.

He barely dodged the first blaster bolt that flew past the back of his  buy’ce , spinning around to find Cody, knocking the blaster out of his hands with an instinctual ease.

No, this wasn’t Cody, this was CC-2224. 

He wouldn’t have Cody back until the chip was offline, gone.

He went for the device, but losing his blaster didn’t mean CC-2224 was out of the fight. 

One of the things he loved most about Cody was his ability to press on, to fight on, but now it was kicking him in the shebs.

A flurry of blows he was barely catching or avoiding, but he had to end this fast, before backup came for CC-2224, before he lost the fight.

For a few seconds, he managed to flip CC-2224 off his feet and pin him, but his hold was weak and he couldn’t use the device and all too quickly he was thrown off his ad and down the hall, skidding and rolling to a stop.

He got onto his hands and knees, only to look up and see the blaster trained on his head.

But CC-2224 hadn’t pulled the  trigger , and he had the device.

He pressed the button and prayed.

A second passed, three, five, then,

“Buir?”

“Cody? Cody, ad, are you back with me?”

The blaster that had been trained at his head clattered to the ground, and Cody dropped to his knees.

“Buir. Buir oh, ni ceta, ni ceta.”

“Oh ad’ika.”

He shot forwards to take Cody’s body weight as his boy slumped against him, ending up on one knee, Cody’s breath hitching as he began to hyperventilate.

“I killed him. Oh, Buir, Buir, I didn’t want to, I couldn’t stop it, I...”

“Cody, Cody, it wasn’t you. You didn’t kill him, it wasn’t you.”

“But it was. It was me; the thoughts were in my head. I gave the order.”

How the  kriff was he supposed to do this? How was he supposed to tell Cody that Obi-Wan had escaped them, that they hadn’t killed him, without raising his hopes only to crush them with the truth that Obi-Wan was still dead? That someone else had murdered him.

Cody would be  devastated .

But he couldn’t repeat what had happened with Boba, nor with Ahsoka and Jesse and Rex, the  devastation that came with information withheld, he had to tell Cody the truth and he had to do it right away. 

“No, Cody, I promise, you weren’t the one who killed him. None of you. He escaped, went after a Sith, they killed him. It wasn’t you. You didn’t do it.”

“Wh. .. what ?”

“Cody, he was murdered on  Mustafar , by a Sith. It wasn’t any of you.”

“He... he escaped us.”

“Elek, elek, it wasn’t you.”

“But he is dead.”

“Ni ceta, ner ad’ika. Ni  ceta .” 

Cody managed one sob, before his body finally gave out and he passed out cold.

Given the reported disorientation, the strain of the chip de-activation on the mind and the body, he wasn’t even sure if Cody would remember this, and the others surely hadn’t heard. 

He was  going to have to tell them again.

Tell people he cared about that Obi-Wan was dead again and again and again.

All he wanted to do was curl up in a bed and cry, not break the news to his  ade that their  O’Buir was gone, not have to comfort them when he needed someone to be there for him damnit.

No, that wasn’t fair. They'd lost Obi-Wan too, after all.

He was their  O’Buir , and they loved him more than just about anyone, just as he had.

His comm buzzed as more and more reports came in, the 212th now almost completely free. There were casualties on both sides, a few unavoidable fatalities, the med-bay would be straining for a while, but it was almost over.

No, it was almost over here, they had a galaxy still to deal with.

How the  kriff had Obi-Wan managed this when Jango had vanished? Functioned when someone he loved was gone and everyone was looking to him to be strong and to lead.

Been strong when he felt so weak.

He gathered his ad in his arms, and headed back for the ships.

.

.

.

With most of the 212th suffering the same thing, and most of them not  actually needing to be monitored, just left to rest until they recovered, the uninjured  vode were taken and left to rest in their bunks rather than the  med bay .

The one downside of Kix’s device, it knocked the boys out for up to a day. Most would wake within 4-8 hours, but there was no certainty. It was still faster that taking the chips out one at a time, in situations like these, but that didn’t leave Jango feeling much better as he waited for his ade to start waking up.

That was when the trouble began, after all.

When they woke up and  realised what had happened, when they woke to the belief that they’d murdered their  O’Buir .

Not just their  Jetii , their O’Buir.

All weapons had been removed, and most of the  vode shared barracks on the ships, so a few Verde in each would be enough to keep an eye on them, keep them safe. 

And Jango was there too, to tell each and every one of them that it wasn’t their fault, that they’d been  mind controlled, that they hadn’t been the ones to kill Obi-Wan, but someone else. 

Each and every one of them, if he had to.

He'd even show them the audio from his  buy’ce of Obi-Wan telling him that he didn’t blame them, though it was awful to see, and not something he wanted to show them if he could help it. He really didn’t want to see or hear it again. But he would, if it saves even one of his ade.

He was hardly alone, there were others helping him, telling the  vode the same, explaining it all, many of which were  vode from other battalions.

Jango was by Cody’s side when he woke,  datawork on his  padd not as distracting as he would have liked while his ad slept.

“Buir?”

“Cody, Cody how are you feeling?”

“Sore,  headachy , what... what happened?”

“You don't remember?”

“No, no, I do. I... I remember what happened, and you coming to find me, but how did you free me?”

“There was a chip in your head, we deactivated it. That’s why you came back to yourself, and it’s why you passed out.”

“And why I shot at  O’Buir ?”

“Elek,  Cod’ika .”

“You said... you said that it wasn’t us, it was a Sith, who... who...”

“It wasn’t you. He went to fight the Sith that did this to you and led an attack on the Jedi Temple, they killed him.”

“On Mustafar?”

“Elek.”

“Mustafar, he went alone?”

“Not quite.”

“Buir!”

“No  vode . He went with  Padmé .”

“But she’s... she’s ready to decant, she shouldn’t have been near a  sith , was Anakin there too, is he ok? Is she ok?”

“ Cod’ika ,  Padmé , the Sith took her, but we’re going to get her back.”

“I should have been there with him, with them; I should have had his back.”

“No, Cody...”

“I swore I'd never let anyone hurt him. I failed. I... I failed him.”

“He didn’t blame any of you,  Cod’ika , he never blamed you. He was so worried about you but he never blamed you, I promise,  ad’ika .”

“But that doesn’t change that it was my fault.”

“ Nyac ! It was the Sith’s fault. He put those things in your heads.”

“But I didn’t fight it.”

“Didn’t you? He survived your attack. You didn’t hunt after him, even without a body. Besides, you had no warning, no way to know.”

“We didn’t think he could have  survived; Boga was dead, we found the cloak with a blackened hole in it, and he fell,  kriff Buir, we shot him off the cliff, he fell to the bottom, it was so far to fall. It was on my orders. I wanted him dead, for being a traitor, for betraying me and my brothers, I was happy when he fell, when he died, I was happy. How can I live with that, Buir? He died and I enjoyed it, I’m a monster.”

“No!  No you are not. You're  anything but.”

“But I am... it was still me that did it, felt those things.”

“13 years  ago I went on a Bounty.”

“What?”

“Your  O’Buir told me not to go, but I didn’t listen, thought I knew better. I've had to live with what happened for the last three years, and part of me is so glad I did take it, because it gave me all of you, but trying to work out how Dooku got into my head and the belief I didn’t fight hard enough, it’s been awful and I've tried to blame myself for taking the job in the first place, I know Anakin did. In the end he always told me that it wasn’t my fault, that there was nothing I nor anyone else could have done, that we didn’t know.”

“Buir, what...?”

“It could have consumed me, the guilt that I'd betrayed my  riduur and my ad, even though it was out of my control, even though I was just as much a victim as them. Cody, please don’t let this consume you, because you were not the monster here. You were a victim. It was not your fault.”

Jango had the horrid feeling that Obi-Wan alone would have been able to get through to Cody, that his words were just bouncing off, but he had to try. 

He couldn’t lose anyone else, especially not to guilt.

“Buir?”

“Lek, ad’ika?”

“When did you last take a break?”

“I’m fine,  Cod’ika .”

“You need to sleep Buir. You need to  look after yourself too, not just us.”

“Later. I'll rest later.”

“Get some sleep Buir. We need you alive. We've lost enou gh. Gar  shuk meh  kyrayc . ”

“I think I can spare a few hours. But you need to rest too. It wasn’t your fault, your aliit and I need you too.”

Cody settled back into the bed, and Jango let himself start to drift off from his chair.

“Buir?”

“Yes, ad’ika.”

“I’m sorry. About  O’Buir . For your loss. I'm sorry.”

“Me too,  ad’ika . Get some rest.”

**Author's Note:**

> Mando'a:  
> riduur- spouse  
> ade- children  
> Jetiise- Jedi (plural)  
> vode- siblings/clones  
> ven'riduur- fiancé  
> vod- sibling/brother/sister  
> Jetii- Jedi (singular)  
> ad- child  
> Baar'ur- doctor  
> Jas'Buir- parent Jaster  
> Buir- parent  
> Lek- yeah  
> Ki'ika- Little Kix (affectionate)  
> aliit- family  
> buy'ce- helmet  
> shebs- arse, butt, buttocks, ass, bottom (I can keep going)  
> ni ceta- I'm sorry.  
> ad'ika- little child (affectionate)  
> Elek- yes  
> ner- my  
> O'Buir- Parent Obi-Wan  
> verde- soldiers  
> Cod'ika- little Cody (affectionate)  
> Nyac- No  
> Gar shuk meh kyrayc- you're no use dead/get some rest.
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed.  
> Yes, it is my mission to emotionally break my readers, sometimes, but there's fluff too, when it wants to be written.  
> I've started on the happy AU of this AU, and also more works on this path, haha, my muse wants what it wants.  
> My Tumblr is One_Real_Imonkey.  
> Please R+R.


End file.
